was
born to Julaha (Muslim weavers) parents. Kabir is known
for his voluminous Kabir Granthavali which contains
various verse forms with love as the dominant motif.
He employed the bhakti (devotional) sensibility to resist
the world-view which imposed the degradation on him
and his fellow low-born. His devotional couplets dohas
have played a vital role in moulding the Indian ethos.

Goswami
Tulasidas (1532-1623) is the finest poet
that Hindi literature has produced to date. His works,
of which Ramcharitamanas (The Lake that is the Story
of Rama) is unarguably the greatest, are relevant at
three levels-aesthetic, moral and social. His lofty
idealism continues to inspire his readers, even today.

Bihari
(1595-1664) achieved
immortal fame by writing just one book Satasai (Seven
Hundred Verses). His name finds mention in the Imperial
Gazeteer alongwith Tulsidas and Surdas. He wrote in
Brijbhasha ( a dialect spoken in the Brij region of
Uttar Pradesh) about love. To him God was love, love
God. His couplets have been compared to barbs, for they
strike deep.

Munshi Premchand (1880-1936)
was the foremost novelist in Hindi and Urdu.
His last completed novel in Hindi, also acclaimed as
his finest, was Godan (The Gift of a Cow, 1936). The
greatness of Godan lies in its unparalleled and indepth
depiction of the Indian rural milieu. It has been translated
into almost all the major Indian languages as well as
many foreign languages. Premchand's other epic novels
include Rangabhumi (The Theatre or Arena, 1925) and
Karmabhumi (Arena of Action,1932) where the focus is
on the nationalist struggle of the country.

Maithili
Sharan Gupt (1886-1964) is considered as
one of the pioneers of 'Khari Boli' (plain dialect)
poetry and the author of the first ever epic in modern
Hindi literature. In his literary career spanning 57
years, Gupt has written over sixty works, comprising
forty nine collections and seventeen translations of
poetry and drama. He was perhaps, the only poet in Independent
India to be honoured with the title 'National Poet'.
In Saket (Ayodhya, 1932), the poet draws on the mythological
tale of Rama, falling back heavily on Tulasidas's epic
Ramcharitamanas. Also evident are influences of Valmiki's
Ramayana, Bhavabhuti's play Uttara Rama Charita, Kalidasa's
Raghuvamsa and the Mahabharata of Vyasa.

Jaishankar
Prasad (1889-1937) is one of the pioneers
of the Hindi literary movement called Chayavada. Lehar
(Wave), his last collection of poems was published before
his great poem, Kamayani (1936), and clearly demonstrates
his lyrical and narrative mastery. Alongwith Ansu (Tears),
an earlier long poem and Kamana, an allegorical play,
Lehar forms a prelude to Kamayani, an allegorical epic
poem. His unique sense of history and remarkable insight
into the spiritual malady that plagues modern civilisation,
set Jaishankar Prasad apart from his poetic peers.

Suryakant
Tripathi (1899-1961) achieved fame through
his pen-name 'Nirala' (the unique), deriving inspiration
from the best minds of the Indian Renaissance, then
flourishing in Bengal. Nirala was a born genius and
sans formal education, studied Indian classics, philosophy
and culture. Deeply rooted in Indian culture, he stood
against the Establishment, gaining recognition as a
poet of revolt. Besides twelve collections of poetry,
which included Apara (The Earthly Knowledge, 1947) Nirala
also penned six novels, many short stories, essays and
criticism, and also translated from Sanskrit and Bengali.
Renowned for his prose, Nirala is also associated with
bringing in free verse in the modern era.

Sumitranandan
Pant (1900-77), author of twenty eight published
works including poetry, verse plays and essays, was
honoured with the prestigious Padma Bhushan (1961),
Jnanpith (1968), Sahitya Akademi and Soviet Land-Nehru
Awards for his immense contribution to the Hindi literary
scene. His poetry epitomised the Indian thought of Satyam,
Shivam, Sundaram (the true, the good, the beautiful).
A prominent of the Chayavada movement, Pant's greatest
poems were penned during this period. When the movement
was on the decline, Pant was the poet who effortlessly
made the transition from aesthetic mysticism to the
temporal, doing so in terms of the Marxist ideology.
This phase later gave way to the larger humanism of
Aurobindo. Thus in his later writings, Pant the aesthete
emerged as a thinker, philosopher and humanist. His
finest work, by far, is Pallav, a collection of thirty
two poems written between 1918 and 1925.

Yashpal
(1903-76) is renowned for Jhutha Sach (The
False Truth, 1958-60), regarded as the finest Hindi
novel written on the chaotic Indian scenario which followed
closely on the heels of the Partition. A Marxist till
the very end, Yashpal's ideology immensely influenced
his writings. He has forty two books to his credit,
excluding translated works.

Hazariprasad
Dwivedi (1907-79), a famous novelist, literary
historian, essayist, critic and scholar, penned numerous
novels, collections of essays and a historical outline
of Hindi literature. His principal works include Kabir,
and Banabhatta Ki Atmakatha (The Autobiography of Banabhatta,
1946), a literary depiction of the life and times of
the classical poet. The latter is in the mode of a fiction
within fiction. The author pretends to have accidentally
found the entire work, his own role in creating it being
'minimal'.

Mahadevi
Verma (1907-87) was educated in Allahabad,
where she founded the 'Prayag Mahila Vidyapitha', promoting
the education of girls. An active freedom fighter, Mahadevi
Verma is regarded as one of the four pillars of the
great Romantic movement in modern Hindi poetry, Chayavada,
the remaining three being Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala',
Jaishankar Prasad and Sumitranandan Pant. She is renowned
for her book of memoirs, Atita Ke Chalcitra (The Moving
Frames of the Past) and Smriti Ki Rekhayen (The Lines
of Memory). Her poetic canvas boasts Dipshikha (The
Flame of an Earthen Lamp, 1942), a book comprising fifty
one lyrics, all of which carry the maturity of expression
and intense mystical quality peculiar to this great
artiste. Her mysticism led to the birth of a movement
called Rahasyavada. Mahadevi Verma has often been compared
with Mira Bai, the great 16th century devotional poetess,
in her lyrical mysticism and deep devotional offerings
to the Almighty.

Ramdhari
Singh 'Dinkar' (1908-74) emerged as rebellious
poet with his nationalist poetry in pre-Independence
days. After the country's Independence , he was often
referred to as the national poet of India, though officially
the title belonged to Maithili Sharan Gupt. He belongs
to the generation immediately following the Chayavadi
(romantic) poets. Dinkar is renowned for his personal
lyrics, apart from a few historical and nationalist
compositions. His verse play, Urvashi, (1961)is a dramatic
departure from his earlier poetry of social concern,
as it deals with love and passion, the earthy and the
sublime, and man-woman relationship transcending the
physical. A Jnanpith Award winner (1972), the book is
the culmination of a poet's spiritual journey. It is
a landmark document involving introspection and philosophical
delving into the Kamadhyatma, The Metaphysic of Desire.

Nagarjun
(b. 1911), is amjor Hindi poet who has also
penned a number of novels, short stories, literary biographies
and travelogues. His Pratinidhi Kavitayen (A Collection
of Representative Poems, 1984)was written over four
decades. It contains almost eighty Hindi poems as well
as a small section of poetry in Maithili, his mother-tongue,
where he is better known as Baidyanath Mishra 'Yatri'.
Nagarjun creates poetry out of the most mundane things
in life, employing the language of everyday speech and
thus bringing poetry as an art form closer to the common
man. The most popular practising Hindi poet in the last
decades of the twentieth century, Nagarjun is considered
as the only poet, after Tulsidas, to have an audience
ranging from the rural sections of society to the elitist
gatherings.

S.
H. Vatsyayan (1911-87), (Sachchidananda Hirananda
Vatsyayana), popularly known by his pen-name 'Ajneya'
or Agyeya, was a pioneer of modern trends not only in
the realm of poetry, but also fiction, criticism and
journalism in Hindi. An eminent freedm fighter, Ajneya
has to his credit sixteen volumes of poetry, three novels,
travelogues and several volumes of short stories and
essays. He edited the Saptak series which triggered
new trends in Hindi poetry, known a 'Nai Kavita'. He
edited many literary journals and also launched his
own Hindi weekly, Dinaman, thus establishing new standards
in the field of Hindi journalism.Ajneya was honoured
with the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Bharatbharati
Award and the internationally reputed Golden Wreath
Award for poetry.His famous works include Amgan Ke Par
Dvara (The Door Beyond the Courtyard) and a cycle of
poems, Chakranta Shila.

Vishnu
Prabhakar (b. 1912), with several short stories,
novels, plays and travelogues to his credit, won the
Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel, Ardhanarishwara
(The Androgynous God or Shiva). His biography of the
eminent Bengali novelist, Saratchandra Chatterjee, Awara
Masiha (Vagabond Prophet, 1974) is however considered
not only, to be his magnum opus, but also one of the
three best Hindi biographies written so far. Awara Masiha,
a subtle combination of fact and fiction, took Prabhakar
around fouteen years to finish.

Phanishwar
Nath 'Renu' (1921-77), popularly known as
Renu, is one of the great Hindi novelists of the post-Premchand
era. An active political activist, one of Renu's masterpieces
is Maila Anchal (The Soiled Border, 1954), a social
novel that depicts the life of a region and its people,
the backward and the deprived. A trailblazer in the
post-Premchand period, the novel radically changed the
structure and narrative style in Hindi novels. The distinct
feature in the novel is that it does not possess a structured
plot or story in the conventional sense. After Premchand's
Godan, Maila Anchal is regarded as the most significant
Hindi novel.

Shrilal
Shukla (b.1925), an IAS officer, is renowned
for his objective and purposive satire in contemporary
Hindi fiction. In 1957, he published his first novel,
Sooni Ghat ka Sooraj (The Sun of a Desolate Valley)
followed by a series of satires Amgada Ka Pamva (Angada's
Foot) in 1958. His Raag Darbari (Melody of the Court,
one of the ragas, 1968) is the first satirical novel
of its kind in Hindi spanning a wide spectrum of post-Independence
rural India, specifically Avadh. It was Shrilal Shukla
who took wit, irony and sarcasm to great heights in
Hindi literature. Raag Darbari is generously peppered
with folk witticisms of Avadhi, the powerful dialect
in which Tulasidas, Malik Mohammad Jayasi and many Sufi
poets made their mark.

Mohan
Rakesh (1925-72) was one of the pioneers
of the Nai Kahani movement in Hindi in the 1950s. Rakesh
made significant contribution to various genres, like
nove, short story, travelogue, criticism, memoirs and
drama. His Ashadha Ka Ek Din (One Day in The Rainy Month
of Ashadha, 1958) is a historical play suggestive of
the personal dilemmas of a present day writer. Ashadha
Ka Ek Din is one of the first major original plays that
revived the Hindi stage in the 1960s. Among his other
plays is, Adhe Adhure (The Incomplete Ones) is extremely
popular with the modern middle-class audiences, and
Lehron Ke Rajhamsa (The Swans of the Waves), a close
study of the renunciation of the Buddha, and its effect
on his own people.

Dharmavir
Bharati (b. 1926) is a renowned poet, fictionist
and editor. Essentially a romantic humanist, Bharati
is famous for his poignant treatment of first love,
his lyricism and humanistic vision. One of his famous
works is Andha Yuga (The Blind Age or The Age of Darkness),
one of the most celebrated modern Hindi plays. Bharati
has been honoured with some of the highest literary
and State awards, including the Padma Shri.

Raghuvir
Sahay (1929-90) was a versatile Hindi poet,
translator, short-story writer and journalist. The editor
of the weekly Dinaman, Sahay's five books of poems includes
Log Bhool Gaye Hain (They Have Forgotten, 1982) which
won him the Sahitya Akademi Award. The poet of the common
man, Sahay dealt with topics hitherto unexplored by
other Hindi male poets. His treatment of women in his
works is extraordinarily sensitive. His Atmahatya Ke
Viruddha (Against Suicide, 1967) comprises 36 poems.
A powerful democratic sensibility and great concern
for the dispossessed, especially women, is the hallmark
of his works. The marginalisation of the average person,
hypocrisy of the powers that be, and the brutish violence
that has crept into the system are some of his principal
themes. But perseverance and going on with life clearly
emerge as his mottos.

Nirmal
Verma (b.1929) together with Mohan Rakesh,
Bhisham Sahni, Kamleshwar, Amarkant and others, is credited
with introducing and establishing the Nai Kahani (the
modernist new short story) in Hindi literature. His
technical wizardry and cosmopolitan sensibility render
Nirmal Verma a one-of-a-kind artiste. Although he has
published four novels, six collections of essays and
cultural criticism, it is his short stories that beautifully
bring out his ethereal sensitivity, lyricism and profound
compassion. Kavve aur Kala Paani (Crows and the Black
Waters, 1983) translated as The Crows of Deliverance,
comprises seven of Verma's latest stories, which deal
with the spiritual ills that afflict his characters,
mostly from the urban middle class.